1. Field
The present application relates generally to highway communication systems, and more particularly to efficient methods for prioritizing and processing received peer transmissions.
2. Background
Vehicle communication networks that can transmit and receive wireless data have been in development as part of systems to improve safety and relieve congestion on the highways. In such highway communication systems, short wave messages may be exchanged to, from, and between vehicles, and between vehicles and roadside base stations. These peer transmissions may be received by a wireless communication device within a vehicle's on-board processing unit, with the contents of the message used for a variety of safety and driver awareness purposes.
If such highway communication systems are ever deployed, it is expected that a great many messages will be generated and received by each vehicle's on-board communication unit. Such inter-vehicle peer transmissions may be received as frequently as one message per 0.1 second according to some estimates. Some messages may require significant data processing, and as the number of received transmissions increases, the vehicles' processing unit may become inundated. This may increase the amount of time required to process some messages. Thus, in a heavy stream of traffic, critical messages may not be processed in time as processing resources are consumed by non-important messages.